breakfix
by Lexa Rawr
Summary: Nothing ever gets easier, but there can always be a second chance.  oneshot


**breakfix**  
by icy79  
A/N: _Italics denote a flashback, something that happened previously. _Normal text means it is happening or has happened recently or "now."

Just an FYI, I also submitted this to the Haven Fiction Archive, haven dot vanityy dot net.

Just some CxC goodness 'cause I'm sappy like that. AUish but I'd like to think it's all plausible.

* * *

He broke her.

* * *

_"I can't do this." Her voice was too quiet, too weak for the usually animated Cornelia, whose flowers had wilted. She made no effort to revive them._

_"Corny..." Her friends had tried sympathy, given her a few weeks to herself, time alone. When it became evident she wasn't getting proactive on her own, they tried to inspire her._

_Peter tried asking her on dates, genuinely concerned for the heartbroken girl, he even offered friendship._

_"Peter... I'm sorry. I can't."_

_Finally, patience wore thin. Will exploded at her one day, unable to bear the sight of her friend in shambles._

_"You're better than this! Better than _him_! Get a grip!" She literally shook her by the shoulders, but Cornelia was as limp as a ragdoll, her gaze unfocused for the moment. "CORNELIA!" Will ended up being the one who cried that day._

They had given up. They had no choice, for she didn't give them one.

* * *

Cornelia scraped through school, scraped through _everything._ Her heart wasn't in much of anything, for she'd left it with a man who said he didn't love her anymore. "I was 'too young,' Napoleon. Can you believe that? Of all the things you can say about me... too... _young?" _She sighed, looking into the mirror.

* * *

_"Are you fit to be a guardian?" Irma asked, cautiously. _

_"I don't know."_

_"Really? You'd give it up?" Cornelia's sorrow was clear on her face. "Corny! What are you thinking?" She splashed water into Cornelia's face, shocking her out of her stupor. "This is just as much a part of you as it is me. You are a _guardian._ I am a guardian. Will is. All five of us are. You'd give that up? That's _selfish._ Just selfish. No, actually, just stupid. You're punishing _us_, who have done nothing but support you, while trying to punish yourself. You don't deserve it, we don't deserve it!" With that, Irma stormed out, before darting back in and watering Cornelia's fading flowers and plants. "That's the last thing I'm going to do for you until you smarten up, Corny. I swear."_

_While she'd kept her face carefully devoid of emotion, Cornelia began to wonder about who exactly she was trying to punish._

Another day, another enemy, another fight. Cornelia had been low on participation lately; the other girls had been forced to compensate for her lack of interest. Today was Cornelia's day, though, she told herself. _You, pal, are _mine.

Somewhere in the rubble of the destruction she had wrought on an evil soul, she found her will to continue.

Unbeknownst to her, a man in the forest had watched, _had_ been watching.

_Taranee was surprisingly mild throughout all of this, content to watch the flames for once rather than spark them._

_She knew things had changed when Cornelia sucked up her pride and asked for some help with her math homework. "I'm so far behind, Taranee, but you're the smartest person I know."_

_"Smarts don't make good teaching," Taranee teased, but they stayed in the library until the librarian woke them up because: "I'd like to go eat dinner with my family, if you two don't mind." The two sleepyheads giggled and returned home.

* * *

_

Time had passed, Cornelia had grown. Successful in both the "real" world and the "fantasy" world, life should have been simple, should have been satisfactory.

And yet, she still wondered.

* * *

_"Oh, Cornelia, you wouldn't believe what happened!" Per usual, Hay Lin was all exuberance and, pardon the pun, airy. Today, even more so. Pinning the phone in the crook of her neck while she spun some vines from her fingers, Cornelia smiled._

_"Oh?"_

_"Heproposedtomethismorning!" _

_"Come again?"_

_"Eric... he proposed!" Cornelia blinked, the regular wash of envy that surged through her whenever one of her friends mentioned their loves was extra strong tonight, but she'd never show it._

_"Wow!" With a sad look at a bluish flower she grew in a vase, one that made her think too much about the past, Cornelia forced a big, wide smile. "I'm so happy for you!"_

_"I'm happy for me, too!" Hay Lin laughed, positively over the moon. "Oh, eep, gotta run, sorry. Talk to you later, Corny."_

_"Oh-" _click. _"'kay."_

_Sinking to her knees, Cornelia felt old wounds reopening, but she'd have none of it tonight. "No, Corny. Just... no. Not now. Never again." _

_She worked through it, like she always had.

* * *

_

_Meridian_... Time passed, but some things never changed. She and her friends still snuck around, created clones of themselves on a regular basis, and protected something the world could never have exposed.

A ghastly creature rose from the shadows, elongated fangs glistening in the dimness of the night. Adrenaline and terror went hand in hand in a guardian's line of duty, how many times had they saved themselves while running on pure instinct, so numb that only the furthest reaches of their brain could remind them to duck and sprint until they beat that sucker and lived to see another day?

_Too many to count, _Cornelia thought, clenching her hand into a fist as she forced the ground beneath her to shake violently. She opened up cracks in the surface, trapping the monster before she sent huge vines to snare it.

Unfortunately, she was so focused on this beast that she was unaware it had a twin, heading straight for her, when her friends were distracted by its cousins.

Spinning around to face it a half-second too late, Cornelia shrieked, bracing herself for an attack that never came.

The creature collapsed, a well-aimed dagger protruding from its throat.

Fighting to steady her breath, Cornelia searched for its killer, her savior, seeing nothing in the forestry that surrounded them.

* * *

_She'd seen him. Once. She's seen the man who'd broken her heart from a distance, purely by chance._

_She'd built walls around the shambles of her heart, the tiny pieces she had managed to keep for herself, even if, she always told herself, even if she'd never have the whole thing again._

_But they were not enough, those tiny walls, how easily they had crumbled at the mere sight of him, who didn't look like he was in the best of minds right now. A sick kind of hope rose within her, what if he felt just as badly about this as she did? What if she had not been the only one suffering? Hesitantly, she took a step forward, but wasn't sure if she wanted him to see her yet._

_Then, to her shock, someone ran to him, embraced him. Twin braids... _Elyon._ The sting of betrayal cut deep, unbidden. She had to work hard to remind herself that Caleb was not hers anymore, that this sharp pang of jealousy, of _pain_, was not appropriate to feel._

_When her friends caught up to her, she pretended to not have seen, ignored their poorly-veiled glances at each other when they saw the two, sitting by a lake. _

_With great effort, she built the walls around herself, reinforced them with the will to not break.

* * *

_

It happened again some weeks later, someone doing something, interfering with her fight in some attempt at saving her. The fact that she _had_ needed saving was beside the point, Cornelia decided resolutely.

The third time, she'd had enough of looking around like a dummy, wondering what (or who) had happened. She looked at the blade, the angle it had been penetrated a beast's leathery wing, then ran at inhuman speed toward where it must have been thrown from.

The ground held no secrets, she "felt" it in her mind, looked to see someone she'd never have expected (never would admit she still longed for more than anything else).

"Caleb," she breathed, frozen.

"You... don't look any different." He said, hesitantly, rubbing the back of his neck, glancing away every two seconds but his gaze always seemed to flick back to her. He couldn't seem to look away. Cornelia didn't even try to.

"Er..." She ran her hand through her long, blonde hair nervously, trying so very hard to be casual about it all. Beneath that weakly-formed façade, within the turmoil of her mind, though, was desperate thoughts. _Leave me alone, you broke me. Don't ever leave me again, you'll break me. _Her heart, what was left of it, couldn't make up its mind. "One of the things about being a guardian. You know that well enough." Bitterness crept into her tone against her wishes, the flash of pain that struck his face was almost worth it. _Almost. _She wanted to be a vengeful harpy, wanted him to suffer like she had, but more than that, she didn't ever want him to experience her agony. Contrite, "That was uncalled for. I'm... sorry."

"No. No. I deserved it."

"Now it's the opposite." She said, a little too abruptly. "I look younger as a guardian," she twisted her lips in a failed attempt at a smile, "it's not very nice. Looking young for a little while, then aging in an instant." Her brow knitted for a moment: "But I'm not old. Not that old. Not yet." He laughed and she wanted to drown herself in its deep richness, how she'd missed the warmth of that laugh.

"The years have been kind to you." _No. No they haven't. _He had no idea what she'd been through! Anger swirled for a second, but before she could act on it, a strange look crossed his face. "I never did get over you."

_Scum. That's a scummy thing to say. Of course you did, Caleb, of course you did. You made your move on my best friend. My former best friend... _She wanted to scream it at him, see that surprise when he found out she _knew_, that she knew all about that, even if she was basing it all on one sighting. _Whatever. One look is enough. _

"I... I know... you probably don't want to linger on the past, you're probably way over it. Way over me." He looked so pained at the notion that she almost – _almost _– wanted to reassure him that no, she'd never get over him. But to do that... it'd be accepting defeat, would it not? After everything... _No. Not gonna do it. _"I dated someone." He said, looking... guilty? No. Cornelia just wasn't good at reading him anymore. "_Elyon._"

Even though she had wanted so hard to look unaffected, to have a mask that said: _I don't care. Date who you want. I'm over you. _But she did care. She wanted him for herself. She was never going to be "over" him. She said nothing, blinking a few times as she awkwardly fumbled for a mask, any mask. Instead, she only felt vulnerable. "I know," she blurted, spinning on her heel to turn away, wanting nothing more than to _run. _To run so far she couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't _hurt._

Instead, he grabbed her arm. "I'm so, so sorry, Cornelia." Suddenly, he was way too close. Her eyes fluttered shut; she couldn't bare to look at him. _But I don't love you anymore. Hell, I don't think I even care about you anymore, Cornelia. Elyon is better for me than you ever were, the _child_ that you were. _She finished his words for him in her head, her heart truly breaking as if he actually had said them. _You're weak and stupid for even hoping. _She hadn't even realized she'd been crying until he gently wiped them away. Startled, she looked at him. "It felt like I was cheating on you. As if... as if we were still together." _Why are you saying this, Caleb? _He looked at her with an intensity she'd never have expected. "I still love you."

Oh, how she had longed to hear those words, had longed for him to take her back, to heal her wounds for good. _It's too good to be true. _This never happened. This wasn't real. Just a trick. "You don't mean that," she said, taking a step back, jerking her arm out of his grip. "You don't even know me anymore."

He laughed. Damn it all, he _laughed._ He laughed at her pain? Agony ripped through her chest, anger quick at its heels. _I should have known better! How could he–_"That's what I had thought. Ever since... Ever since I left... I knew it was a mistake. Every night since you've left, I've dreamt of you." Once again, she was captivated by his gaze, unable to move. "Like old times. Like before." He swallowed, hard. "And I tortured myself with imagining you, hoping you were well and good. Better without me than you had been with me. I think... I was right to think that. You look amazing as always. Even when I was with... with... with Elyon, I knew it wasn't _right. _It lasted... not even a week, Cornelia, I couldn't pretend for even seven days. Our second 'date.' It was... at a lake. I told her I couldn't do it because... I didn't tell her why. She knew, though, she knew. Then... I saw you... fighting, looking stronger than ever before and I knew I couldn't have you even though I wanted to. You're too good for me. You're different... I told myself I didn't love _you_ now, I only loved who you used to be. When I saw you, it was supposed to back that assumption up, I was supposed to realize that you'd changed, that _I_'d changed, and that we weren't too pieces of the puzzle anymore. We couldn't possibly _fit._

"And yet... I... I knew when I saw you. Even if you were different, you were still Cornelia. Still the woman I loved. The one that I _love._"

He caught her when her knees buckled and the sobs came unrestrained. "Cornelia? I'm sorry...! I didn't, I didn't mean to–"

She smiled through the tears. Even though she wasn't _supposed_ to be, should have been _stronger_, should have _resisted_ because _this can only be a lie_, she was _happy._ Unbelievably happy. "Caleb," his name was all she could think, he was all she could feel. _Caleb, Caleb, Caleb... _

She kissed him, unable to deny _anything_ any longer but physically unable to speak the words, her emotions too tumultuous (but euphorically so) for her to express them in _anything_ but _this._

Deep within a heart that was soaring for the first time, she knew he had understood, knew what she'd been trying to say, when he kissed her back with equal fervor.

He healed her.


End file.
